Bye Bye Birdie? Climate Change And The Natural World

[Rosyfinch]

Bye Bye Birdie? Climate Change And The Natural World
By RITA DANIELS

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When Raymond Vanbuskirk was a teenager a decade ago, he heard about the mythical
Rosy­Finch and how flocks would swarm the Sandia Crest east of Albuquerque. So on
a cold winter morning, he huddled in freezing temperatures on the mountain and
waited.

“And then all of the sudden WHOOOOSHH! There’s this huge group of birds, and
they’re twisting and turning like a school of fish in the sky,” Raymond said. “And then
as soon as they were there, they were gone.”

The Rosy­Finch breeds in the alpine tundra as far north as the Arctic Circle in the
summertime. In the winter, they fly south to hang out on snowy mountaintops above
the tree line. But as winters get warmer the Rosy­Finch is being forced to head further
north. Raymond said he used to consistently count about 1,000 Rosy­Finches here
Birds are caught in mist nets. Normally they are banded and released within minutes of being captured.
 every winter.

“But now, the past two winters, we’ve been on a regular basis seeing somewhere
between 30 to 150 birds,” Raymond said. “The Sandia Crest doesn’t seem to be able to
support them like it used to.”

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